Sit on the rim of the well of darkness
by crackinthecup
Summary: Sometime in the winter before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Maedhros and Fingon share a moment on a sleepless night.


**A/N:** Title teased out of a poem by Pablo Neruda from _The Sea and the Bells_.

* * *

"Maitimo?"

He stiffened, as he always did. But then Fingon yawned and continued in a soft voice, pretending not to notice: "You weren't in bed."

"I couldn't sleep," Maedhros replied truthfully, automatically; he seldom could these days. He did not take his eyes off the plain of Lothlann even as Fingon shuffled closer to him. The night was cold and clear as only winter nights can be, and beneath the pale light of the stars the barrenness sprawled far beyond Himring and the rocky darkness of the cluster of lesser hills round it, even to the edge of sight, gray and ghostly; ephemeral even, and in the wake of that thought he shivered.

"_Is this real, Finno? Am I real? Has it … has it truly stopped?"_

"It's freezing out here," Fingon remarked, quite unnecessarily. He shot a worried glance toward his cousin and opened his mouth to say more, but something in the set of Maedhros' jaw checked his words. He shifted from foot to foot, condensed breath shuddering out of him in an exhale, and instead he drew closer, standing now right beside Maedhros; not quite touching.

Words of thanks bubbled within Maedhros then, and with their potency he almost choked; he felt his shoulders sag as minutely he relaxed, an automatic lull in alertness, despite everything else. Fingon would not prod; he understood when speaking felt like knives lugged up his throat—a hemorrhage. Other times still Fingon would blithely shatter the silence everyone else treated like a delicate crystal bauble that would crack in the most gentle of hands; he would chatter on, easily, naturally, when others would awkwardly still their bumbling tongues, and to his words Maedhros clung; meaningless driftwood, but still it buoyed him away from his own thoughts sharp as blades, and the wreckage that birthed them.

And now Fingon stood at his side, staring out into the dark night in silence, absently tugging at the blanket he had draped over his shoulders. Maedhros heaved a little sigh that curled like smoke from his lips, shifting in restlessness and something else, something that writhed and moiled within him; something he wasn't even sure had a name, but it came with the slow fading of the stars. With everything else.

"You'd better go back to bed, Finno," he forced himself to say. "You have a long journey ahead of you on the morrow."

Fingon turned to face him fully, too fast, too harshly, with a slight scowl on his face. There was a flicker in his blue eyes; something hard and glittering, flashing like ice in the darkness.

Spurred by mangled instinct Maedhros flinched._ I'm sorry_, he longed to say; he parted his lips, out of reflex, reaching out with his remaining hand to trace broken patterns across the stone of the low-lying ramparts. The apology froze in his throat, lagging, choking him, at the memory of cold blue eyes in a face suddenly harsh and closed-off; a wave of the hand, assurances strangled, the past bashed to a bloody pulp and hastily hidden, though the stain spread—a lie: _it doesn't matter_.

Fingon's touch was soft upon his wrist. The flicker had faded. "We both should go to bed," he whispered, and his eyes beseeched. But truly, Maedhros thought, _hoped_, as he felt guilt drop once more into his chest, it was so difficult to tell in the dark.

He nodded, wordlessly; suddenly, acutely aware of the weariness creaking within him as it settled like a pall over the guilt and the dread and the longing. _It is not lack of sleep, and you know it. _He thought to say it out loud, to make Fingon understand. (He did.) The hours seemed longer like this, dawn further off; he could pretend. But when Fingon steered him away from the brightness and the stars with an unobtrusive hand at his back, he did not resist.

The fortress was silent, its corridors deserted. The flames in the braziers had died out. Fingon led the way, and he was content to follow. It was an oft-trodden pathway, indelible even in the deep gloom of night.

"_Why do you keep coming out here?" Fingon had asked one night, when Maedhros' rare smiles had made him bold._

_A shrug. "No one ever does."_

The bed was still warm, and Fingon's arms round him were even warmer. He nuzzled his face into Fingon's chest, he breathed him in and curled tentative fingers in the fabric of his nightshirt. Though he had staved it off through the crawling hours, yearning at last cracked, it gaped empty and dreadful within him; he could feel the expansion of his cousin's chest with each inhalation, the curl of bone round his ribcage and his soft breath ruffling the fine hairs at his temple, but still he felt he was far, far away, farther than he could ever reach. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, and he ducked his head, resolutely he hid his face.

And in that moment he felt not like the lord they made him out to be. He clung to Fingon with need snapping through every sinew in his body, and Fingon sighed, reaching up with gentle fingers to stroke over his cheekbone, stooping to press a tender little kiss to the crown of his head.

"I have to go," he murmured, and knew it was as much for Maedhros as for himself.

A beat flickered between them, and a pre-emptive shadow of dread wrenched a shiver from Maedhros. "I know," he choked out wetly, miserably, into Fingon's nightshirt.

"You'll be all right," Fingon soothed, and instantly regretted his words. The lie curdled and soured on his tongue, and he grimaced slightly, casting about for something else to say. To his horror there was nothing, and for a moment he dithered. But Maedhros did not reply; he simply wriggled closer with an unsteady little breath. So Fingon settled for holding his cousin tighter, closer, as though that could mean anything at all once he was gone.

And in the darkness, with plans of war weighing on his mind and the memory of the Dagor Bragollach like a hook through the heart, words clamored to his lips; words that had no space in the narrow crevasse between their bodies. He wanted to speak of the encomiums they heaped at his feet, like flowers that faded too quickly; of how he trod on their graves each time he went to Maedhros' room. Valor, they said. But he felt helpless, and instead he bit his tongue, quelling the fear and the inadequacy. He had taken words like small silver knives and sliced Maedhros' scars into his own flesh, on the inside, rubbed raw by guilt.

And he knew, deep in his heart he knew, that no matter what he did, however gently he might cradle his cousin to his chest, whatever sweet, absurd promises might trip over his lips, the desecration, the vile, vain brutality that had been committed upon him could not be undone.

So he said nothing. This moment was not for him. (None ever was anymore.) He simply embraced his cousin, gazing with lovely, shredding fondness upon the contours of his face even as his breath steadied out in sleep. And he found himself wishing, achingly, innocently, that they could stay like this forever.

"You will be all right," he said again, soft and precious as a promise, despite himself.


End file.
